Working in an unique educational setting can have its rewards and challenges. At the Royal Children’s Hospital Education Institute we are committed to providing a rich learning experience for children and young people so that their journey as learners continues in hospital. We aim to make the transition from hospital back to school or kindergarten as seamless as possible by keeping students connected to their regular learning environment and their peers. To inspire children’s interest and curiosity as learners, our teachers create vibrant learning spaces and personalised learning opportunities on wards, outpatient areas and other locations across the hospital. Our teaching and learning program is steeped in a strong evidence-base of proven approaches to engaging children and young people in learning, with a strong focus on literacy and numeracy, taught through the lens of the creative arts with a design thinking approach.

Research tells us that children who miss school due to a health condition or prolonged or frequent stays in hospital are at risk of disengaging from formal education. In this process of teaching and learning the Education Institute identified a gap in supporting our students in their ongoing transition to and from school. We identified that there were improvements that could be made around communicating to and from schools with our long term stay students we work with. We embarked on overcoming this process by setting ourselves a design challenge around the central provocation “how might we improve communication about student learning between home, hospital and school?” Through a design thinking process our teaching team set out in developing solutions to this challenge and began developing ideas and prototypes of eportfolios to be used as a collaboration and communication tool for students between hospital, home and educational environment. Join us as we speak about our journey around the ideation, synthesis, prototyping, testing and development of eportfolios across the Royal Children’s Hospital Education Institute to be used as a means of supporting all chronically ill students achieve their greatest learning potential.